Thirty Lines
by Be Kat
Summary: Kitty has a poetry assignment, that like most things in the humerous xworld, goes terribly wrong. Does Wolverine really wear a red skirt?


**Disclaimer: **You need to hear it again? Can you say, 'memory retention worse than Be Kat's'? Once again, I own nothing ... not even any stock.

**Summery: **All right people, just a little fic. Writing peotry had always come easy to me; but when Remy called me with some writing problems about the same assignment as Kitty's, I decided to give the idea some thought. What do other people do when they have this assignment? This is what I thought Kitty might do. Piotr just decided to shove himself in. :) Sorry about that.

* * *

Kitty sat at her desk in the x-mansion, head cradled in one hand as she looked across the small pool of light from the dim table lamp. A single line was written on the blank sheet of paper in front of her. Kitty's other hand lay lax across a pile of pencil sharpenings, the stub of a pencil loosely held between her thumb and forefinger. Her head drooped still lower as it's supporting arm skidded across the slick wood surface. Her head blocked the light shining on her still un-finished essay. A simple line explained all of her problems in ten little words. 

_Write a thirty-line poem on something important to you. Due Monday._

Kitty woke as her head smacked the center of the paper with a resounding thud. She sat upright, rubbing at her nose. The essay's title seemed to jeer as her finger came away bloody. Swearing, Kitty stood and walked to the room's tiny bathroom, tipping her head back and pinching the bridge of her pert nose. Blinking at the bloodshot reflection that greeted her, Kitty pulled at the bags under her eyes. All because of thirty lines.

_Hell, I'm probably going to get thirty crows feet from this thing. One for each line_

Heading back to her desk, dabbing with toilet paper at her nose, Kitty exhaled deeply as she sat.

_Come on Kitty, thirty lines. Think of something. What's important?_

Kitty had been asking herself the same question for the past seven hours.

_I can't use the "I phased my homework and lost it" twice in the same week - and I already used my week's quotient on that history assignment I spaced._

Kitty propped her head up again and doodled on the corner of a scratch pad. The floor was covered in small peices of crumpled poems, each more pitiful than the last. Lines such as _My brother hit the ball _attempted to make sense when followed by _Arrived on time to the mall. _Kitty knew her life had been boring, but she had never realized **how **boring it truly was.

Tapping her foot, she looked up at the bulletin board above her desk. Photos of her friends and her littered the beige surface messily, with the center place of honor held by a small portrait of Piotr. She smiled up at the photo. She remembered that day so well. She and Jubilee had conspired together and managed to get a picture where the Russian didn't look either stony or sad. He had just told Kitty a joke, and was smiling fondly at her when Jubilee jumped out from behind a bush, took the picture, then ran like hell. His expression afterwards hadn't been one she needed to record - that particular gaze of anger was burned into her memory could for all enternity.

Kitty shivered at the mere memory, then giggled.

_It was worth it for that picture._

_Maybe... _Kitty chewed on the erasure of her pencil, reducing the length yet more although from the opposite end. _Maybe I could write about everyone here. They're important to me._

With a goal in mind, Kitty feverishly tore the top piece of paper off her pad.

_I'll start with Jubilee_

Pencil poised above the paper, Kitty tried to figure out how many people there were in the mansion that she knew well.

_Well, Jubes, Jean, Xavier, Scott, Piotr, Bobby, Rogue. Lets see, that's seven. If I think of one more and do four lines on each person, I'll have thirty-two lines! Wolverine, he's important to Rogue even if I don't know him. 'kay, I'll start with Jubes._

Bravely committing her thoughts, Kitty started to scribble.

_Jubes, yellow peril, dressed to kill_

_Her fashion sense is never nil_

_Her calling cards are scorches_

_Her fireworks, like torches_

_Light up the night_

Sitting back, Kitty admired these hasty sentences until she realized that she had five lines about Jubilee.

_Well, she's my best friend. I'll just cut one from Wolverine._

Kitty set to work on the epic, ruthlessly cutting more and more lines from Wolverine until she finished at a total count of thirty-five with one line about the grouchy Canadian stuffed between Jean and Scott. Sitting back, Shadowcat admired the precision of her numbering on the side of the binder paper.

_Yup, nine is still after eight._

Checking the clock, which now read four a.m., Kitty hastily typed up her messy paper, printed the finished project, and then collapsed into bed fully dressed.

_Wonder if Jubes and Rogue are still working on theirs. _Kitty turned on her side and inhaled a feather from the pillow underneath her head. To tired to do much more than sputter about it, she yawned (carefully facing away from the pillow) and mumbled sleepily, "Bet they're...not...as...good...as...mine."

Next day in class Kitty managed to keep her eyes open only with great difficulty. Scott asked Rogue to read her poem aloud, an abtract piece about how her gloves protected her from everyone else rather than the other way around. It honestly made little sense to Kitty's sleep-fogged brain. Jubes talked about shopping. Piotr had something about brown hair in the sun, which she fell partially asleep during. She couldn't figure out _why _everyone looked so mad at her after that, except Piotr who looked sad and disapointed.

"Kitty?"

Kitty looked up to see Scott standing over her.

"Yes Mr. Summers?"

"See me after class."

Startled, Kitty nodded her cooperation. It wasn't like she never fell asleep in class. It must be something about that dratted poem. And she had thought it was good!

The rest of the day dragged by. Even math hardly sparked any interest in the comatose Kitty. By the time classes finally ended she felt drained and depressed. She wished Scott could just fail her while she slept upstairs, instead of making her stay awake through the process.

Dragging her bag off the table and over her shoulder, Kitty was astonished to see Piotr waiting for her. He was normally the first one out of the classroom, leaving everyone else to pick up the shards of whatever he might have knocked over.

_Klutziness and organic metal - **not **a good combination._

"Did you like my poem?"

"Uh, yeah, it was great Piotr. Really inspired."

He seemed inexplicably pleased with her answer and the shy smile accompanying it. Kitty tried desperately not to yawn. Piotr was finally showing an interest in her, great yes, but couldn't he show it after she had gotten eight hours of sleep with make-up on and her hair up instead of a bed mess?

Scott chose that (as usual) opportune moment to stick his head out the office door. "Kitty, today would be nice."

"Coming Mr. Summers."

Rolling her eyes at Piotr, Kitty muttered "See you at dinner." He nodded, but stayed where he was as she walked through the door into Scott's office.

He sat there at his desk, like a younger version of the professor, fingers steepled. "Please sit."

Kitty sat.

He pulled her poem out of a folder. "Kitty, this is one of the most interesting pieces I have ever read, even including Boom-Boom's poem about shoveling manure at her uncle's farm. But this..."

He sighed. "This is the single most inspired bit of idiocy I have ever read. I assume you waited until this morning to write it?"

She nodded mutely. What was wrong with it?

"Allow me to read to you a few lines. They ought to sound familiar."

_"Scott, he is the love of my life_

_Though he doesn't know it, through tears and through strife_

_I hope we can manage a date out sometime_

_Just him in his visor and me in mine"_

Kitty gaped. "But...that part about the date and love of my life, it was about Piotr." She blushed.

_Did I just say that out loud? I hope Piotr already left._

Scott raised his eyebrow above the ruby-red glasses he always wore. "You haven't heard the least of it. Here, Wolverine is decribed as _'Wearing a short red skirt/Always likes to flirt'. _Now, the flirting bit I can see, but the short red skirt?"

Kitty blushed. "Ah, ah, that was supposed to be Jean?"

"What about the _'Xavier, dressed to kill/His fashion sense is never nil'_?"

Kitty hid her face in her hands and groaned. "I must have mixed up the names when I typed it. I'm so sorry Mr. Summers..."

Scott tossed the sheets down on his desk and rubbed his temple. "Kitty, I have decided to pass this paper on the grounds of creative license. Don't let it happen again."

Kitty, grabbing her bag, dashed through the wall before he could change his mind. Unfortunately that also put her right through Piotr who was listening outside the door.

Letting out an earsplitting screech, Kitty continued running. This had to be the worst day of her life! Piotr must have heard what she said in there. Now he was going to think she was some lovesick fool.

_And he would be right. But that doesn't mean I want **him **to know it!_

Kitty discovered that running up stairs when you're intangible is about as easy as trying to swim up a waterfall.

Piotr skidded around the corner behind her, landing in a heap at the bottom of the stairs Kitty was trying to de-phase herself out of.

"Kitty! Wait?" He stared down at her head and shoulders emerging slowly through the stair at his feet. "Oh! Sorry." Piotr leaped backwards - another bad move on stairs. Kitty winced as he hit the bottom of the stairs after several _thumpeta-thumps _on the way down.

"Piotr?"

The solid russian didn't move.

"Oh, God, JEAN! PIOTR!"

Kitty climbed the rest of the way out of the staircase, then scrambled down to Piotr's side. He twitched as she rolled him over so he was face up.

He was laughing.

"Piotr!" Kitty smacked his shoulder. "I thought you were hurt!"

The grey eyes grinned up at her. "Piotr doesn't get hurt Kitling." He sat up, grabbed her shoulders, and kissed her.

Kitty froze.

_Waiiiit. This was a bad day?_

_Or not._

_Maybe I should try two hours of sleep more often._

_Unable to form cohesive thought pattern._

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Thanks for reading. Hope everyone enjoyed it. Reviews are welcome, as usual. Don't blame me for being unable to end a story well - I've been reading Michael Crichton, the king of bad endings. It was supposed to be funny, and then _I _suddenly looked at the clock, realized it was four a.m., and hit send. 


End file.
